IP: Fascinating analysis in Le Monde Diplomatique

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Jack Rieley" <jrieley () boardrush com>
> To: "David Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
> Dave,
>
> The new edition of Le Monde Diplomatque leads with a thoughtful analysis of
> 'The World's New Look.'
>
> It's in English at http://www.en.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/12/01newlook and
> in the original French at http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/12/RAMONET/
> .
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Jack Rieley


This is the automatic summary produced by Copernic


Summary:
- It all began on an early autumn Tuesday, with the successful test of a 
new weapon: an aircraft on a scheduled flight, fully loaded with fuel, 
transformed into an instrument of destruction.
- That was the case with gas after 1918, and with the aerial bombing of 
cities post-Guernica 1937.
- They were intent on three levels of effect: material damage, a symbolic 
impact and a world media coup.
- We know the scale of the damage: over 3,000 people dead and the twin 
towers of the World Trade Centre destroyed, along with part of the Pentagon 
--- as the White House would have been if the fourth plane had not crashed.
- Nuclear power stations and dams had also been on the list, with the 
likelihood of apocalyptic devastation and tens of thousands of dead (3).
- The second objective was iconic, attacking and toppling the principal 
symbols of US power --- economic (the World Trade Centre), military (the 
Pentagon) and political (the White House).
- The third, less obvious, objective, was the attention of the media.
- The image of a curiously gentle-looking figure in a cave in Afghanistan, 
mostly unknown before 11 September, suddenly made him the best-known man in 
the world.
- Now that the development of global technology has made it possible to 
transmit real-time images instantly worldwide, the conditions are right for 
media messiahs.
- The attacks allowed him to deliver his message to every screen on the planet.
- A man who, paradoxically, does not baulk at inventing a new terrorism (6).
- For we all now know that we are dealing with a new terrorism --- global 
in its organisation, also in its reach and its objectives.
- Both President George Bush, with his "crusade" (before he retracted the 
offensive word), and Osama bin Laden have described this confrontation as a 
clash of civilisations, a war between religions.
- The world waited nervously, expecting that the US response would be 
rushed and impulsive.
- Many world leaders --- French president Jacques Chirac the first among 
them --- rushed to Washington, officially to express condolences, but 
actually to offer unconditional allegiance.
- Worldwide, more than 360 suspects have been arrested, accused of links 
with the al-Qaida network and Bin Laden (11).
- If the US persisted in doing so to overthrow the Taliban regime (Bin 
Laden's protectors), it would run into difficulties with Pakistan, a 
military presence, with a population of 150m and nuclear weapons.
- He must have thought that further north, Russia, whose relations with 
Washington were cool because it opposed Bush's cherished anti-missile 
shield project, would not collaborate with the US, and would certainly not 
offer the US facilities with its Central Asian allies in Uzbekistan and 
Tajikistan.
- No hesitation As events proved, Bin Laden got it wrong.
- And the punishment it has inflicted on Afghanistan warns all other 
countries: anyone opposing the US will be isolated, devoid of allies, and 
exposed to the real danger of being bombed back to the stone age.
- Another lesson is that globalisation is continuing, and fast becoming the 
main characteristic of the world.
- But the crisis has revealed globalisation's vulnerability, which is why 
the US now argues the urgency of setting up a security apparatus for 
globalisation.
- By weakening nation states, devaluing politics and dismantling 
regulation, globalisation has favoured the growth of soft-structured, 
non-hierarchical, non-vertical, networked organisations.
- Now, with globalisation, we see the network state.
- And even the individual-as-state, Bin Laden being the first and obvious 
example --- although for the time, as a hermit crab needs an empty shell in 
which to live, Bin Laden still needs empty states (Somalia yesterday, 
Afghanistan today) to occupy to fulfil his ambitions.

---------
Summarized by Copernic Summarizer


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/